Qualcomm has unveiled its newest Snapdragon 805 chipset, an upgraded Snapdragon 800 chipset which features an Krait 450 quad-core CPU part as well as the brand new Adreno 420 GPU.

The Snapdragon 805 chipset features a quad-core CPU that will be based on the new and improved Krait 450 architecture. It can clock up to 2.5GHz and features memory bandwidth of 25.6GB/s. Of course, it is still a 32-bit processor so it looks like we will still wait a bit longer for Qualcomm to hop on the 64-bit train, currently exclusively held by Apple.

In addition to an improved CPU, the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 chipset also features a completely new Adreno 420 GPU which, according to Qualcomm, has 40 percent more processing power when compared to the Adreno 330. It has 4K display support as well as 4K video recording support, already seen on the Snapdragon 800 chipset.

Qualcomm also included a new Gobi 9x35 modem, which is based on a 20nm manufacturing process so it should be smaller, more power efficient and faster. It packs LTE Cat4 support, dual-band 802.11ac WiFi and features support for 4K video streaming via WiFi. It also packs a new dedicated camera processor, which should increase camera speed, provide much better image quality and has a gyro sensor for additional stabilization.

According to Qualcomm, the chip is ready for mass production and first devices are expected in the first half of the next year. We are quite sure that we will see some devices at CES in January next year as well as Mobile World Congress in February.

A week ago Qualcomm CMO Anand Chandrasekher called Apple’s 64-bit support in the A7 SoC a “marketing gimmick” and last night Qualcomm issued a statement retracting Anand’s bash.

“I think they are doing a marketing gimmick. There’s zero benefit a consumer gets from that,” said Chandrasekher. Of course, he was talking about a specific product at a specific time and since we all know 64-bit support is inevitable, Qualcomm clarified Chandrasekher’s statements.

"The comments made by Anand Chandrasekher, Qualcomm CMO, about 64-bit computing were inaccurate. The mobile hardware and software ecosystem is already moving in the direction of 64-bit; and, the evolution to 64-bit brings desktop class capabilities and user experiences to mobile, as well as enabling mobile processors and software to run new classes of computing devices," a Qualcomm spokesperson told us.

However, Qualcomm stopped short of shedding any more light on its own 64-bit plans. Samsung already made it clear that it’s working on 64-bit parts, ARM’s A53 and A57 cores were announced ages ago and Nvidia has Project Denver. Qualcomm is still refusing to say anything about 64-bit Krait parts, but it’s more than obvious that it will have to roll out its own ARMv8 parts soon.

Given Qualcomm’s launch schedule, this probably won’t happen next year, as the Snapdragon 600 and 800 should be replaced in the first half of the year and it is highly unlikely that the new parts will feature 64-bit support.

We could not get the right timeframe for the launch of Qualcomm’s successor to the high-end Snapdragon 800, but there is no doubt that Qualcomm, Samsung, Nvidia and other ARM supporters are thinking about 20nm products where some of them will be based on Cortex A57.

Qualcomm has its own Krait core that can be adapted to 20nm and follow up the success of Snapdragon 600 and the soon to come Snapdragon 800. It turns out that it traditionally takes 18 to 24 months for the mobile industry to shift from one process to another and Qualcomm had its first 28nm part in April 2012, with the Snapdragon S4, used in the HTC One S. The first ever 28nm part from Qualcomm was the Snapdragon S4 MSM8260A that is now more than a year old and a relatively obsolete product.

Less than a year after the first 28nm product Qualcomm followed up with the Snapdragon 600 that is shipping in millions of high end devices right now. In a month or two it plans to release Snapdragon 800 based on new Krait 400 core and add a new core and get even better performance.

The next step is the 20nm core that should start shipping before the end of 1H 2014. We would not be surprised to see 20nm Krait demoed at CES 2014 already in January, see more of it at the Mobile World Congress in February and the volume shipment to follow in early Q2 2014. This is the expected schedule and not something we got from Qualcomm.

The only official world we got is that the new generation traditionally comes 18 to 24 months after the first iteration of a current one. This can give you an idea that Tegra 5, codenamed Logan, should show up at a similar time, along with Samsung’s 20nm Exynos.

At least 50 designs wins for a combination of Snapdragon 600 and the soon to launch Snapdragon 800 are currently in the pipeline. This was confirmed by Tim McDonough Vice President, Marketing at Qualcomm in a recent conversation with Fudzilla.

Some devices, such as the HTC One, are starting to ship as we speak and the Samsung Galaxy S4 is coming soon. Both should enjoy strong sales, but this is just the start. The only Snapdragon 800 phone announced so far is the ZTE Grand Memo and Tim told us that more devices are on the way. He calls them design which means that not only phones will be powered by these chips. We are expecting convertibles, tablets even TVs. The number 50 is quite nice for a super high end chip, and you can imagine that Qualcomm will sell even more Snapdragon 400, 200 and even a great deal of last year's Snapdragon S4 chips.

The Snapdragon 800 has great camera capabilities and can easily record and play 4K Video, Ultra HD 3840 × 2160 pixels, something that might be interesting for future proof next generation devices. Snapdragon 800 comes in the second part of the year but we also heard we should learn more about it this Summer.

We are quite sure that there will be some Snapdragon 800 phones and tablets (convertibles) in time for back to school period which happens mid-summer in the northern hemisphere. That should be winter time for Australia.

In addition to the Xperia SP high mid-range smartphone, Sony also revealed a slightly cheaper Xperia L 4.3-inch smartphone based on Qualcomm's MSM8230 chipset.

The 4.3-inch 854x480 touchscreen is far away from 720p screens usually found in higher priced smartphones, but it should be enough for most consumers. Sony decided to go for Qualcomm's MSM8230 chipset that features two Krait CPU cores clocked at 1GHz, paired up with an Adreno 305 GPU. The rest of the specs include 1GB of RAM and 8GB of internal storage space expandable by microSD card slot.

Just like the mid range Xperia SP, this Xperia L also features 8-megapixel Exmor RS sensor camera with HDR-mode for both pictures and video mode as well as a dedicated shutter key. It also features a front 0.3-megapixel VGA camera for video calling.

Unfortuanately Sony did not reveal any details regarding the price of the Xperia L, either, but according to rumors and early listings it should be priced at less than €300 in Europe. The Xperia L should also be available in black, white and red color in Q2 this year.

Not only does Qualcomm have Snapdragon 600 chips ready and about to ship, but it is also stepping up its game in entry level and mainstream markets. The company has decided to formally introduce two new chips, detailed a few weeks back.

The Snapdragon 400 series is aimed at mainstream gear. It is powered either by two Krait cores 1.7GHz featuring Asynchronous Symmetric Multiprocessing (aSMP) or four Cortex A7 cores running at 1.4GHz. The A7 version is probably a bit more efficient as well.

The graphics of choice is Adreno 305, but not too much has been revealed about this graphics core. Snapdragon 400 is not an LTE chip, but it does play with HSDPA+ at speeds up to 42Mbits that should be sufficient for entry level phones.

The chip supports LPDDR2 or LPDDR3 RAM memory and camera sensors up to 13.5 megapixels, premium audio, and 1080p video capture and playback. The good news for wireless streaming fans, the chip supports Miracast out of the box. Snapdragon 400 processors will find their way inside the following chips 8226, 8626, 8230, 8630, 8930, 8030AB, 8230AB, 8630AB and 8930AB.

The runner up Snapdragon 200 is the real entry level part and it has four A5 cores clocked at up to 1.4GHz. It supports Hexagon™ QDSP5 digital signal processor and comes with Adreno 205 ancient GPU.It can playback HD and support cameras up to 8Mpixels and it supports LDDDR2 memory. It is CDMA multimode or UMTS capable chip, it supports multi sim cards and dual sim stand by as well as high accuracy GPS.

Based on the specs one can clearly notice that this is a chip meant mainly for emerging markets in Asia market, where dual sim phones are a big deal.

These chips will join Qualcomm’s quite strong portfolio of Snapdragon processors that should be dominated by flagship 800 series, that should come in the coming months. The 600 that is powerful and ready right now, while 400 and 200 parts should cover the mainstream and entry level respectively.

Qualcomm’s custom Krait cores made quite a bang earlier this year, as they offered vastly superior performance compared to vanilla A9 cores and even today, with A15-based products slowly starting to trickle down to consumers, Krait-based dual- and quad-core SoCs are competitive as ever.

However, Qualcomm won’t use custom cores in low-end SoCs. In an interview with the Taipei Times, Qualcomm exec James Shen said the company plans to continue using custom cores in high-end chips, but in cheaper chipsets Qualcomm will just use plain ARM cores.

“When quad-core chipsets become popular, those chipsets will be very similar to each other,” said Shen. “Consumers, in fact, are not concerned about what kind of chipsets [are used in their phones]. Instead, they are more concerned about which brands are used in those electronics [products], and they are more concerned about the overall performance of the chipsets.”

Qualcomm recently introduced two A7-based quad-core SoCs, designed specifically for the Chinese market, and MediaTek followed up with a similar design of its own.

Basically Qualcomm will use custom cores to grow its brand in the high-end and differentiate from other outfits, but in the low end its chips will be just as dull as everyone else’s.

Qualcomm used its annual Uplinq developer conference to show off the first quad-core Krait chip in action.

Qualcomm’s Raj Talluri, the man in charge of Snapdragon development, took to the stage to demonstrate the new chip in a development tablet. Designated APQ8064, the SoC features four Krait cores running up to 1.5GHz. It can hit 1.7GHz when just a single core is active.

However, unlike the MSM8960 of HTC One S fame, the new chip features next generation Adreno 320 graphics. It is said to offer vast improvements over Adreno 2xx parts, but Anandtech reckons it will have trouble keeping up with next generation offerings from Imagination and Nvidia.

Still, the APQ8064 will be the fastest thing around when it launches. However, we still don’t know when it will make it to actual products.

HTC started making a name for itself in the smartphone market several years ago with Windows Mobile phones. It is successfully continuing the tradition to this very day, but it gained a lot more mainstream popularity in Europe and America for its Android phones. I can remember HTC Android 1.5 Cupcake devices, but it all really took off with the HTC Dream, aka T mobile G1 and later with the HTC Hero. The Hero design is slowly coming back with new HTC One V, but for now we will focus on the 4.3-inch One S, the first smartphone powered by Qualcomm’s 28nm S4 8260A processor.

Aside from the new processor, the One S also boasts Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0.3 with HTC Sense 4.0. Imagine, an Ice Cream Sandwich phone that’s not a Nexus. We apologize for the sarcasm, but it really took way too long to see phones shipping with Ice Cream Sandwich, and kudos to the house of HTC. Some vendors are still churning out new models on Gingerbread. (We are looking at you Sony. Ed) Despite the state of the art processor, hi-res screen and aluminium body, the One S is not HTC’s flagship device. That distinction is reserved for the HTC One X, which comes in at about €100 more. It features a 720p screen and Tegra 3 processor. The X stands for eXcellence, HTC claims, but the S can stand for a superlative of its own.

The HTC One S is the first phone to ship with the new Qualcomm Krait core, a dual core Snapdragon S4 8260A to be exact. It is clocked at 1.5GHz, comes with 1MB L2 cache, supports dual-channel 500MHz DDR2 memory and it is coupled with Adreno 225 graphics. US readers will be disappointed to know that HTC One S doesn’t have LTE support. Let’s get into some numbers and further specs. The phone measures 130.9 x 65 x 7.8 mm, or 5.15 x 2.16 x 0.3 inches and it weighs 119.5 grams (0.26 pounds). It features a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED screen and the resolution stands at 540 x 960. The phone has 1GB RAM and 16GB integrated storage, but no microSD card for expansion. Instead HTC offers 25GB of Dropbox storage free of charge for two years.

The box contains a charger that comes with detachable USB cable, manual and headset. Like most new phones, the One S features a micro-SIM slot and in order to access it you need to take off the top lid that covers the camera, a plastic flap and insert it. It is not what we would call practical, but then again most users will not change their SIM cards at all. Once you are done with the SIM card, the One S powers up in no time and you are good to go.

HTC One S is probably the thinnest phone with a decent sized screen we’ve seen so far. It measures just 7.8mm (0.3-inch) and it features a beautiful aluminium body finished using micro arc oxidation. The process basically bombs an aluminium plate with 10000 volts of electricity creating a micro reaction that creates a ceramic-like surface on the phone. It should be three times stronger than stainless steel. We wonder if HTC will start making cutlery using the same process. I could do with a few stylish steak knives.

On the whole we can say that it feels great in the hand but if you leave it standing on the table for an hour or two, it will feel metal cold. We are not sure if this is a good or bad thing, but at least nobody will say it feels plasticky. The finish feels great, offering a lot of grip, and it feels very robust for such a thin device. If you want to see how it’s made, you can take a look at this video.

In terms of features, you could hardly be blamed for mistaking the One S for a flagship device. It features a speedy 8-megapixel camera with F2.0 lens and autofocus that can take snap up to 99 photos continuously, but we will get to that later. The camera features an image sense chip sensor that makes delivers outstanding image quality, for a phone at least. The camera can make the iPhone 4S run for its money and it also supports 1080p video. It also allows you to snap still photos while shooting 1080p video. This is really nice feature that we are starting to see on high-end phones.

Let’s not forget 802.11a/b/n support, Bluetooth 4.0, DLNA wireless streaming for audio and video and micro USB 2.0 that can act as HDMI via a special cable. Of course the phone comes with 3.5mm stereo audio jack as well as a speaker on the back side. The phone supports Beats Audio, but it is really nothing more than a gimmick as far as serious audiophiles are concerned. The phone features a 1650mAh battery that delivers decent battery life. The battery is not user-replaceable.

We are happy to see Android 4.0.3 out of the box and Sense 4.0 is a refreshing distinction from Galaxy Nexus vanilla Android 4.0 interface. Of course, it will take some time to get used to it, but going form Gingerbread 2.3.x to Android 4.0 requires some time to adjust. Right off the bat we have to say that we like Sense 4.0. Like previous versions, it offers practical and easy to use shortcuts, for example you can unlock your phone directly to dialer, main, messages or camera. The part that sucks is that if you have a face recognition or pattern or pin turned on, after unlock you need to deal with that. Face unlock suffers from low light but usually works nice and quick in normal lighting conditions. Still, face unlock is more or less a gimmick and most users will still stick to the traditional swipe-to-unlock approach.

Sense relies on home button, back button and task button that you have below your screen. Killing a task is just a swipe away. You can modify the task bar that comes with dialer, mail, sms camera and all app in our case but you can also add folders. We missed the browser in default task line, but of course you can place the shortcut on your own. Customization is not a problem.

It is equally easy to place widgets, you press and hold an empty space on one of your screens and chose a widget or an app. Really nice. You can integrate multiple mail accounts, Facebook, Twitter, Dropbox, SkyDrive and a few other applications and you can set all this up when setting the phone up. There is a lot to say about Sense 4.0, and it does have its foibles, but generally we liked it better than vanilla Android 4.0 as it just feels better and looks great, but this is a matter of personal taste.

The power button on the top right, audio jack top left, the left side of the phone has micro USB 2.0, right hand side facing forward has volume up and down keys and the down side comes with a microphone hole.

The back side of the phone is dominated by the camera with LED flash, Beats Audio logo and speaker.

There is no microSD slot and you cannot access the battery, either.

Unlike its bigger brother, the One S uses a Super AMOLED display. The thin screen allowed HTC designers to shave off an extra millimeter off the girth, but it also has one drawback. It uses a PenTile matrix arrangement, which results in some graininess, especially in high-contrast images. It basically creates an illusion of a lower-res screen and the difference is very noticeable once you place it next to the HTC One X, with a gorgeous SLCD 720p screen.

Despite this the screen looks very good, especially if you don’t have an HTC One X next to it, but it definitely isn’t the best possible solution.

The phone feels incredibly fast and the UI is silky smooth. Every single operation is blazing fast, but installation was especially impressive for us. On Wi-Fi it takes a few seconds to download a few MB application and installation usually takes even less than that. This has to do something with quite fast integrated storage that runs 23.6MB/s write and 45.7 MB/s read, according to Antutu. This was the fastest phone experience we had until we got HTC One X in hands that did some things slightly faster, but has a noticeably better screen. We will tell you more about the One X in a couple of days.

Both the stock Android browser and Chrome beta ran very fast and browsing is a joy. The phone is significantly faster than an LG Optimus 2X and it is neck and neck with the Galaxy Nexus, a phone that so far delivered the best Android 4.0 experience. It is not that you have plenty to choose from as Sony Experia S still runs Gingerbread.

Getting 25GB of free Dropbox storage is a great move on HTC’s part. Dropbox is a very clever service and with good upload speeds it takes mere seconds to upload a few MB files from your PC or phone to Dropbox and then a few more from Dropbox to your phone. The new feature to automatically upload photos to Dropbox is great, as it gets you eye-Fi like feature as you can see your phone in matter of seconds on your PC or notebook. Really cool stuff that makes transfer a bit easier and greatly reduces the need for USB sticks. With a 25GB Dropbox, capability to connect to 25GB of Microsoft Skydrive, the integrated 16GB of storage doesn’t sound too small.

Most phone makers are turning away from microSD storage, especially in high end devices. There is a very good reason for this, and it has nothing to do with aesthetic issues or bulk. Internal storage tends to be significantly faster than microSD and buying a speedy high-end phone only to burden it with slow external storage and undermine the user experience sort of defeats the point of getting a high-end phone to begin with.

The camera is great. Like we said, it is an 8-megapixel unit capable of 1080p video. It can take 99 photos in burst mode, save them all or an algorithm can chose what it thinks its best one for you. Auto focus is quick and even in low light we got quite decent results. In very low light and no flash, you can get a nice picture, but obviously it will be grainy due high ISO and small sensor. It takes 0.7 seconds to power up and shoot, and the photos usually turn out really sharp, especially in daylight. Flash photos are acceptable but it’s better to take a few just to be sure that one of them will be decent. This is still a phone but takes photos good enough so you can forget about spending a few hundred on a point and shoot camera. Of course, point and shoot cameras are still way ahead of phones, phones are slowly getting to the point when they can truly replace cheap cameras.

Click for a full size sample

We will follow up with some videos and pictures for you just to prove the point. The camera startup is insanely quick, it takes photos and moves to a new one in no time. This is one of the best phone cameras that I’ve seen and it outperforms almost all phones on the market today. The iPhone 4S cannot take video and photos at the same time, the Sony Experia S is a tad slower, although it does feature a massive 12-megapixel sensor and dedicated shutter button.

Sound quality is decent and the speaker can play some nice music but it’s nothing spectacular. Beats Audio feels like a gimmick but it delivers good sound, no complaint there but it’s nothing that we haven’t heard or seen before. It will play all your music on speaker or headset just fine, nothing more to add here. HTC bundles a pair of standard headphones with the One S and they are nothing to write home about. Beats Audio tends to boost bass levels a bit, but audiophiles will be better off with an after-market unit. This is true of all smartphones today and we believe phone makers should really start paying a bit more attention in this department, especially when it comes to high-end devices.

We ran a lot of benchmarks to try to see how the new Qualcomm S4 8260A in 28nm with Adreno 225 graphics performs. The bottom line is that it performs great but One X, powered by a quad-core Tegra 3 chipset, scores a bit more in multi-threaded tests.

HTC One S Qualcomm 8260A wins in Quadrant, Linpack and Sunspider, compared to the 4-plus-1-core Tegra 3. It also scores better numbers in Nenamark 1 and GLbench Egypt standard test but since its running at 540 x 960 vs. 1280x720 at HTC One X, we are talking about apples and oranges in some tests. Tegra 3 wins this test in off-screen rendering when they compare the same image size in Egypt Off screen test. HTC One S is the fastest phone in Sun Spider test and it turns out that both OMAP 4430 from Texas instruments and Qualcomm with S4 8260A can score better in this test, lower is better of course. Linpack is a relatively unreliable test as 10 runs will result in 10 varying scores, but we ran 10 on each device and took the highest number. The One S wins this round. Browsermak scores better on Tegra 3 HTC One X as it clearly get use to all cores. Now back to all multi tread aware tests. In Antutu, CF Bench and AndE bench more cores is clearly better.

Overall, HTC One S is one of the fastest phones around and we almost dare to say that it’s the fastest and thinnest 4.3-inch phone in the world.

Conclusion

HTC’s One S is the thinnest, fastest high-end phone we’ve seen to date and the new aluminum-turned-ceramic material feels great.

One can argue that the phone looks a bit bland, it sticks with HTC’s traditional design and it will not turn heads, but this is a matter of taste. The camera is the best we’ve seen in this screen size and the phone performed admirable in all tasks and benchmarks, sometimes even outpacing the quad core Tegra 3. Some people will find HTC’s One X a bit too large and this is exactly the target group for the HTC One S. It’s a great phone, and although it does not have the best screen out there, it makes up with a very good processor, excellent camera and unparalleled build quality.

It feels great in your hand, it’s comfortable to use, and generally it is a great phone, one of the best we’ve seen. Downsides include limited storage, but HTC aims to make up for it with 25GB of Dropbox storage. It would be nice if HTC worked out a way to use volume buttons as a camera shutter button.

HTC really made a great comeback after a rocky year, and it is entering 2012 with a very nice lineup. The €450 price tag sounds a bit too steep, especially knowing that €100 more you can get you a One X, but once again you either want 4.3 or 4.7-inch screens, it’s hard to want both formats. The competition also offers a few alternatives. The Galaxy Nexus is now available for €399 or less and you can also pick up an Xperia S for about €430 and both offer pretty good value for money, although they can’t match the One S in terms of performance or build quality.

Qualcomm’s next generation S4 MSM8960 was put through its paces by PCmag and the new super-phone chip seems to be a very promising piece of silicon.

The MSM8960 is the first of Qualcomm’s next generation S4 series (Krait) chips and it is a 1.5GHz dual-core stamped out in 28nm. PCmag compared the new chip to Texas Instrument’s OMAP4460 of Galaxy Nexus fame and Nvidia’s Tegra 3, which we know from the Asus’ flagship Transformer Prime tablet.

The chip, stuck in a Qualcomm development platform rather than an actual product, was tested in AnTuTu, NenaMark2, Browsermark, SunSpider and CaffeineMark. The results? It managed to outpace the OMAP and Tegra in every single test, sometimes with a very wide margin. In SunSpider and Browsermark it was between 15 and 25 percent faster than the competition.

If you were expecting Nvidia to win back some dignity in graphics performance, think again. The S4 features Adreno 225 graphics and it outpaces Nvidia and TI in graphics tests as well. In NenaMark it scored 59.9, while Tegra 3 and OMAP4 managed 45.3 and 23.8 respectively. The only bench where the S4 lost to Tegra was AnTuTu.

The impressive results may sound a bit surprising, but it is worth noting that Qualcomm’s Krait architecture is loosely based on ARM’s A15 core, while Tegra 3 sticks with the old A9. TI’s next generation OMAP5 and Samsung’s Exynos 5250 feature a similar A15 dual-core layout, which means we can expect excellent performance from them as well.